Report: Fla Supreme Court split to cost millions

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — State courts officials have determined that the proposed splitting of the Florida Supreme Court will cost taxpayers more than $14 million in remodeling and moving costs, not including the added personnel costs for a bigger court, according to reports.

The new — and as-yet unfunded— costs are mostly made up of building security changes, architects’ and permit fees, and construction for “remodeling/retrofitting,” said the reports, known as judicial impact statements, from the Office of State Courts Administrator. That doesn't include any computer system changes the justices might need.

The $14 million is a best guess, based on recent repairs at the Supreme Court building on South Duval Street in downtown Tallahassee, the reports said.

House Speaker Dean Cannon is pushing the plan that would increase the number of Supreme Court justices from seven to 10 and create two divisions of five judges each, one for criminal appeals and the other for civil appeals.

The change to the Supreme Court requires amending the state constitution. That means it would have to be approved by voters before becoming effective.

Cannon wants both divisions to sit at the new courthouse for the First District Court of Appeal, displacing that court.

Lawmakers and others have criticized the almost $49 million spent to build the district court's lavish courthouse in Tallahassee, dubbed the “Taj Mahal.” It hasn't been decided where the appeals court would be relocated.

A call and email to Cannon's office were not immediately returned.

Part of the problem, according to the reports, is that the appellate courthouse “may have to accommodate upwards of 100 more employees than it was originally designed to house.”

That number is mostly workers in the Office of State Courts Administrator, which oversees the court system's administrative functions.

A call to State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner was not immediately returned.

Supreme Court moving costs will be another $80,000, based on the appeals court's own move from its old downtown digs to the new courthouse.

That courthouse is part of community called SouthWood, developed by the St. Joe Company. Florida State University's law school is moving into the old courthouse.

Moreover, to prevent having to move all of the Supreme Court's paper files, it'll cost another nearly $99,000 to scan them all, certainly totaling millions of pages.

And all that scanning will have to comply with state and federal regulations that require documents to be accessible to people with disabilities.

The two Supreme Court divisions would sit jointly to handle attorney discipline cases and administrative matters. Each division would have its own chief justice, appointed by the governor, and overall administrative responsibility would shift between the two chiefs every four years.

Another proposed expands the high court's jurisdiction so it could consider cases beyond just those where lower appeals courts have disagreed on the same point of law. But that change could quickly and greatly expand the court's caseload — one estimate says by 2,700 cases per year — and stress the court's resources. Justices and their staff attorneys will have to consider all the new filings to determine whether the court should take those additional cases.

“Changes to the Supreme Court's jurisdiction ... can be anticipated to overwhelm the Court's existing resources,” the reports said.

The reports also show a need for extra personnel at a yearly cost of $3.6 million.

The courts struggled with a sudden $72 million shortfall after a drop in mortgage-foreclosure filing fees. Gov. Rick Scott agreed to a loan to make up the shortfall for the rest of this year; the courts start a new budget on July 1.

Cannon lauded Texas as an example, but a lawmaker there recently filed a bill to abolish that state's separate court of criminal appeals and collapse it into a single Supreme Court. Texas already has separate criminal and civil courts of last resort.

But the measure, sponsored by Texas state Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, does not have a financial impact note and is not scheduled for a hearing. Raymond is a Democrat representing Laredo; Democrats are overwhelmingly outnumbered by Republicans in the Texas House.

Raymond wasn't immediately available, an aide said.

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Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas contributed to this report.